Every once in a while, one of my adventures doesn’t live up to my expectations (ahem, West Coast Trail). Be it an error in planning and predicting terrain, or environmental conditions, sometimes a trip is either much easier or much more difficult than anticipated. In our planning for Mount Adam, we …

Most people mark the passage of time by annual events in their lives like birthdays, holidays, the New Year, and so on. Since I’ve started my Island Alpine Quest, I’ve started marking the march into Spring by how early I leave home on Sunday morning. During the winter, my departure …

As parents, my wife Kim and I fall into all-too-familiar parent-child relationships with Hemingway and Octavia. My behaviour exemplifies the old platitude: When you love your kids, you want the best for them. You’ll go out of your way to make sure their lives are better than how you perceived …

Canoe Peak is a thorn in my side! It’s approaching comical how many times I’ve set this peak as our objective for a trip and then had to change the plan. Be it weather forecast, avalanche conditions, a blizzard through Sutton Pass, or zero visibility, for one reason or another …

Mount Flannigan is a 1550-metre peak located on the east edge of Strathcona Park. You’ll easily find it on the map because the park border sticks out like a sore thumb. The summit overlooks the Tools Creek Valley. If you love backcountry skiing, then you’re probably already familiar with this …

Getting up at 3:00 am isn’t my favourite way to spend a Sunday, but I do it week after week. I head outside, driven by my Island Alpine Quest, the goal of summiting more than 250 peaks. In doing so, I find myself hiking in some seldom-visited locations on Vancouver …

I imagine you might be asking yourself, Why the benign title? If you’re a regular reader, you’re familiar with my Island Alpine Quest: to summit all of the peaks listed in Philip Stone’s book Island Alpine (1999). The goal is lofty, and many of the peaks will require multiday adventures through …